When it comes to abandoning plans to have a sex change, you’ve got folks like Mike Penner, the Los Angeles Times sports writer who, somewhere before the operating room doors swung open, decided not to have a sex change surgery. And then there’s Ruben Noe Coronado, a Spanish 25-year-old FTM hopeful who, in the middle of transitioning, got pregnant — and put his plans on hold.

But only for now.

Coronado, who is living as a man but still considered a woman under Spanish law, learned his girlfriend wasn’t able to reproduce, so he opted to keep his “lady business” in tact so he could deliver the babies. Now, he’s pregnant with twins (thanks, fertility docs!) and due in September. After he gives birth, Coronado says he’ll have the surgery and take on the role of the babies’ father.

So while Thomas Beatie might be the world’s most famous pregnant man (he gave birth to a girl and is pregnant again), Coronado will the first transexual to deliver twins, says the Daily News. And, like any expecting mother receiving media attention, he might flip the pregnancy for profit: Coronado says he might the pictures “everyone’s going to want of me looking pregnant. If I don’t do it, someone else will and they’ll make a fortune.”

Do I even need to point out how wrong it is that you referred to the subject of this article as a woman in the headline and as she throughout? Lady parts do not (necessarily) a woman make, Queerty: you know better than that.

Mar 22, 2009 at 1:12 pm · @Reply ·

Brianna

Erik I was just coming here to echo your sentiments.

Mar 22, 2009 at 1:23 pm · @Reply ·

emma

What Erik said. Thank you for changing the pronouns, but the headline is still problematic. A better headline might be, “Transman Holds Off Transition to Give Birth to Twins.”

Also, I could be wrong, but I think “transsexual” is generally spelled with two s’s, though maybe Queerty style disagrees.

@emma: “Transexual” is the UK spelling, I think, so I guess it’s technically correct.

As a transguy, I was definitely put off by the word “woman” in the headline. But they used the correct pronouns (him, his) in the story, so it’s not all bad. (Or did they just change it because you guys complained? Well, I guess Queerty’s going to have to learn by experience, haha.)

I have to point out that it’s still possible to have gender reassignment surgery as an FTM without sacrificing your reproductive system, depending on what kind of surgery you have (chest, metoidioplasty, etc.). Maybe what he was really putting off was taking testosterone (which, of course, is a no-no if you’re pregnant or trying to get pregnant) but the article just assumed it was surgery. The public generally overemphasizes “the operation,” but it’s really the hormones and the social transition that do the major work.

I’m glad that Queerty chose to cover this topic. It’s an especially important issue for the transguys who read Queerty, who tend to be gay and might want to have children with their male partners. I’m definitely looking forward to have kids myself — who needs to let anatomy stand in the way of starting a family?

Anyhow, I second Andrew’s comment — this article seems to imply it’s the gender reassignment surgery that would prevent pregnancy, but it’s actually the testosterone-taking that is problematic for a transman hoping to get pregnant. Beatie went off testosterone for several months to enable his pregnancy, I imagine Ruben Noe Coronado took similar steps.

I feel like it’s phrased very vaguely in most news sources covering this topic, maybe queerty could be the one to make the clarification?

What’s the big deal? The person is essentially a woman. Born female. So what? A woman got pregnant. Big wow. The only thing that’s wrong is when the person tries to gain media attention and profit from the pregnancy. Then it truly becomes an issue of ethics and values, which they have none in such cases as the transman that went on the Oprah show. She makes me sick. I won’t give her the respect of calling her a man. She doesn’t deserve it.

Mar 22, 2009 at 9:49 pm · @Reply ·

afrolito

If you can get pregnant and give birth, then you’re a woman. You can feel like a man, call yourself a man, but you’re a woman.

Mar 22, 2009 at 9:59 pm · @Reply ·

emma

I was so glad not to see any obnoxious, transphobic comments here before… I guess that wasn’t likely to last long.

Mar 22, 2009 at 10:02 pm · @Reply ·

DB

Doctors can no more change a person’s sex than they can change someone’s race. It is folly and hubris to think otherwise.

As someone that has multiple transgender friends, I am irritated that we in the gay community can be so transphobic. Gay and lesbian people are not the only ones that have social issues to deal with, and it is more conducive to our progress that we work together.

Also, the best pronoun to use for a transgender person is the one they prefer. And DB, if you think gender is black and what, you need to read up on intersexed people. If I remember correctly, something like 1% of the population is born intersexed, and gender roles are completely a societal construct.

Last I checked, the site is called Queerty, not Gayty. Trans people are queer.

Mar 23, 2009 at 4:26 am · @Reply ·

DB

You don’t need to wag your schoolmarmy finger at me, Nate. If intersex people want surgery that’s up to them. The point remains that surgery and hormones does not make a man into a woman or a woman to a man.

If you want to stop gay rights dead in its tracks just see what happens when you tell parents that their little girls have to share a bathroom or a locker room with some guy in a dress who believes himself to be a woman.

His point was that even biological sex isn’t black and white. We don’t determine biological sex by just one factor, but many––most notably, chromosomes, genitalia, and hormones (necessary for the development of secondary sex characteristics). But sometimes one (or more) of these factors is ambiguous or doesn’t match the others. Is someone with XY DNA and female genitalia, who at puberty develops breasts and curves, a man or a woman? How about someone with XX DNA but masculine brain chemistry? Conditions like these affect a significant chunk of trans people.

Further, even among those with consistent sex characteristics, when a person is diagnosed with gender identity disorder, the prescribed treatment is usually physical transition. While you might not think that someone in this situation can technically change his or her sex, what reason is there to shame and other this person, and disrespect him or her by refusing to use his or her preferred gender pronouns?

I don’t really see the point of your comment about bathrooms and locker rooms. The movement for increased accessibility for trans people mostly involved improved privacy, e.g. more solid bathroom stalls, more private, unstigmatized changing areas in gyms, etc. Whom does it hurt for a transwoman, even pre-op, to use a private bathroom stall in the same bathroom as a young girl? And even in less private situations, many post-op trans people are indistinguishable from non-trans people at a glance, even naked in a locker room. Whom does it hurt that a transwoman, appearing female in every physical way, has XY chromosomes?

If your argument is that challenging conventional wisdom about gender will irreversibly hinder gay rights, it’s too late. Gayness in and of itself challenges conventional wisdom about gender. Most of the people we’re trying to win over don’t make much of a distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity in the first place. This is evident in everything from stereotypes about gay men being womanly and lesbians being manly, to questions about who’s “the man” in a lesbian relationship, to assumptions that trans people are all attracted to members of their biological sex and are just transitioning in order to become straight. Homophobia and transphobia both spring from the idea that men and women are completely, inalterably distinct and that they must adhere to strict roles defining what (and who) they can and cannot do or be. Gay people and trans people both flagrantly violate these roles. They are both guilty of the same offense. That’s why philosophically, and often politically, their causes can’t be separated.

Take the debate over the trans-inclusive ENDA, for example. We can argue the merits of incrementalism all day long, but in the end, leaving out the trans-inclusive provisions leaves gay people without complete protection. These provisions protect employees from discrimination on the basis of “the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual.” Many, many gay people are in some way gender-variant in their appearance or mannerisms, whether they’re a butch lesbian or a man with a relatively high voice. Under the non-inclusive ENDA, while they couldn’t be fired specifically for being gay, they could be fired for their too-short hair or their “inappropriate” effeminacy. And you might think you’re safe if your gender presentation is mostly normal, but after you, confident in your new federally mandated job security, come out to your boss, don’t be too surprised if he (or she), encouraged by gay cultural stereotypes, starts perceiving you as more effeminate (or more butch, if you’re a woman) than you think you are. If he doesn’t like that, it would be perfectly legal for him to fire you, not for being gay, but for seeming too gay––in your gender presentation.

The way to win our rights isn’t to say, “Don’t worry, we’re nothing like those freaks! We’re real women/men, just with one teeny difference from you!” It’s to teach people that discrimination based on expectations about biological sex is wrong. Because that’s the problem at the root of both homophobia and transphobia. And that’s why neither gay rights nor trans rights is complete without the other.

I would guess—editors can correct me if I’m wrong—that the slogan uses “gay” rather than “queer” because the well-known phrase homophobes use is “the gay agenda” (or “the homosexual agenda”), not “the queer agenda.” If they’d used “queer” there, the joke wouldn’t work as well. That doesn’t make Queerty not a queer site.

Even if it’s true that “without out gay men [there would be] no site,” how does posting occasional trans-related news make it suddenly a site “without out gay men”? They’re still here. The OP was made by one. And they’re still the focus of most of the news on the site. You’re in no danger of ouster by some kind of trans coup.

Finally, although I don’t suppose you’d be interested, I explained why trans issues have everything to do with gay issues in my long comment above.

Mar 24, 2009 at 1:48 am · @Reply ·

HYHYBT

I would imagine there are practical reasons to hold off on the operation as well as the horomones. I’d hate to try giving birth through a penis!